The government is providing funding of £150 million per annum for the academic years 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16 to provide new and substantial primary school sport funding. The funding is being jointly provided by the Departments for Education, Health and Culture, Media and Sport, and will see money going directly to primary school headteachers to spend on improving the quality of sport and PE for all their children. Each school will receive £8,000 plus an extra £5 per pupil each year for the next two years - here at Highlees Primary School that will mean around £9,000 a year. The money can only be spent on sport and PE provision in schools.

Recently the government have committed to funding the primary school Sports Premium up until 2020 - an investment worth £750 million.

Our priorities mean that the funding for 2015-16 enabled us:

To increase quality of PE lessons delivered in Curriculum time

To continue to develop to level of Inter school competitions attended

To raise awareness of the importance of developing Healthy Lifestyles to targeted groups

To raise awareness of PE within the School

To create Leadership Opportunities for Young People

To maintain membership of Ashford Schools PE package

To maintain membership of the Youth Sports Trust

Here are a few of the comments from children who have benefitted from the Sport Premium Funding, and how it has made them feel...

Our Change for Life Breakfast Club Gang!

Year 2 children are "Born to Be Wild!"

This term, Year 2 are linking PE with their class topic ‘Born To Be Wild’. The children have been exploring different ways of moving to a beat, as part of the Dance element of this terms PE lessons.Each pupil is working towards achieving the following;• Move confidently in a range of different ways, linking together simple actions with control• Work effectively with a partner to plan and review work• Support and encourage others with their work• Describe how their bodies change before, during and after exercise

During Week 1, Year 2 listened to two pieces of music. The first was ‘We Will Rock You’ by Queen and the other was ‘African Gumboot Music’. The children identified that both pieces of music had very definitive ‘stomping and clapping’. With this in mind the class were put into groups and given the challenge of putting together three different ‘stomp, stomp, clap’ moves. Here are our videos;

Football Fun with Fantastic Frank!

Frank was in brilliant form as eight KS1 children travelled to Sandwich to take part in their annual football tournament. The team recorded three wins, three draws and two defeats placing them high in the overall standings. Along with Frank in goal a defence consisting of Myleene, Lilly, Jake and Mark put in some outstanding performances resulting in conceding only five goals and keeping an impressive 5 clean sheets. At the other end the deadly strike force of Harvey and Liam shone, scoring 8 goals between them, with Mark adding another.